Interview: Chris Soth

At the Creative Screenwriting Expo last fall, The Wave-inatrix got to know Chris Soth, featured speaker, bon vivant and by all accounts, a brilliant fellow. He's agreed to a short interview for the Rouge Wave:

Rouge Wave: What exactly is this “million dollar screenplay” you talk about?

Chris Soth:

Ooh, Julie, why you gotta do me like that? Now I am all confused. Do you mean my website: MillionDollarScreenwriting.com? Or the screenplay I wrote for which some think the site is named? Or the BRILLIANT, LIFE-CHANGING course I offer through the book and DVD and the occasional live seminar (and now -- TELESEMINARS!!!) via that same http://www.milliondollarscreenwriting.com, the unsurpassed quality of which, along with its value is the REAL reason I call it MILLIONDOLLARSCREENWRITING.COM. That's MillionDollarScreenwriting in case you missed it.

Rouge Wave: Hold on, let me write that down, I didn't quite catch that...

Chris Soth:

(Sigh)

Rouge Wave: That is no way to get a cupcake, mister.

Chris Soth:

Moving on. If you're asking about the screenplay, this was a little something I called FIRESTORM, big old action-adventure movie in a forest fire, which I wrote as my thesis in the Graduate Screenwriting Program at The University of Southern California, which sold for $750,000 (I also got an "A"). ThreeQuarterMillionDollarScreenwriting.com was taken, so I rounded up, and have been teaching the USC techniques -- which I call "The Mini-Movie Method" -- that helped me write Firestorm ever since. Firestorm was later made into a movie imaginatively titled "Firestorm" and enjoyed a brief theatrical release and was on TV again the other day. No, you haven't seen it -- you are thinking of FireSTARTER, starring Drew Barrymore and based on a novel by Stephen King. No worries, everyone makes that mistake.

Rouge Wave: Guilty as charged. So if you're not Stephen King, you are....?

Chris Soth (rhymes with "both", No worries, everyone makes that mistake). WGA member since 1995, twice produced screenwriter, owner and proprietor of MillionDollarScreenwriting.com and the REVOLUTIONARY new website and service HollywoodByPhone.com -- helping aspiring screenwriters network with managers, Lit Agents, filmmakers, executives and producers, LIVE via conference call. There's nothing like it!

Rouge Wave: What is a mini-movie and what is so revolutionary about it?

Chris Soth:

A "Mini-Movie" is a segment of a film story that's 10-15 minutes long, based on the amount of film held on a reel. It's just WAY easier to divvy up your story into "reels" and never be more than 15 pages away from a major landmark event to guide you on your way. If it's good to have an Act One plot point and an Act Two plot point, isn't it, by simple math, FOUR TIMES as good to have eight such landmarks on your path from FADE IN to FADE OUT? Act Two is where screenplays go to DIE. 60 pages with no guidance? What if it weren't any harder to write any section of Act Two than it had been to write the segment before? It doesn't have to be!

Rouge Wave: Could you, uh, put that in another way?

Chris Soth:

(Sigh) Each reel is its own discreet chunk of the story, like the chapter in a novel. Like a little movie all its own.

Rouge Wave: Why is Julie Gray your favorite redhead and is it true you’ve actually gotten a cupcake?

Chris Soth:

Julie Gray has slipped down my list of favorite redheads, just behind Conan O'Brien, Bozo The Clown and yes, Judas Iscariot, due to promised but undelivered cupcakes. Countless times they were promised, WITH SPRINKLES, and yet, here I stand, cupcakeless. A man without a pastry. When does the lying stop, Julie Gray? If that IS your real name???!!!

Rouge Wave: Mmmaybe. Do you have any classes coming up?

Chris Soth:

Change the subject, why don't you? I'm flying to Chicago to teach a live seminar over President's Day Weekend, 2/16 and 17 -- email me for more information if you're nearby. I'm also deeply involved in a recently launched mentoring program and will be offering the Mini-Movie Method by teleseminar this coming June -- live on the phone and web, you can take from home anywhere in the world!

CHRIS SOTH is the founder of MillionDollarScreenwriting.com, screenwriter of FIRESTORM and the upcoming OUTRAGE. He is the author of the ebook "Million-Dollar Screenwriting: The Mini-Movie Method", available for download on his website. Chris is also the host of the interview conference call series HollywoodByPhone.com, providing access for screenwriters to Hollywood Managers, Lit Agents and more live via phone -- recorded on MP3 -- and all transcribed for your reading pleasure. He is also the producer and star of "SOLD! HOW I SET UP THREE PITCHES IN HOLLYWOOD." The Writer's Store Best-Selling DVD.

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